50th Anniversary of Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion

2014 was the 50th anniversary of the Patterns of Fashion series. We held a one-day event from 10.30am – 4.30pm on the 31st January 2015 to celebrate the anniversary at The Art Workers’ Guild in Bloomsbury, Central London. Both presentations and demonstrations on the subject of ‘Patterns Past, Present and Future‘ were given and there was a selection of Janet’s original drawings on display with some of our students’ work based on her patterns.

Presentations included ‘Janet Arnold and the Future of Patterns of Fashion’ by Jenny Tiramani, ‘Patterns of historic garments and dress research’ by Johannes Pietsch, ‘From 16th century masterbooks to Simplicity patterns‘ by Melanie Braun, ‘Observe to understand, observe to think, observe to recreate; different aspects of reading a costume‘ by Thessy Schoenholzer Nichols, ‘Changing dimensions: the art of pattern drawing‘ by Claire Thornton, ‘Fashioning the study of dress through x-radiography‘ by Mary Brooks & Sonia O’Connor, ‘Dead Men’s Patterns’ by Hormazd Narielwalla, ‘Macro photography for patterns’ by Cristina Carr and ‘Using patterns for film and theatre’ by Luca Costigliolo.

‘Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwomen’s dresses and their construction c. 1660-1860’ was first published by Wace in 1964. Fifty years on, Jenny Tiramani and Luca Costigliolo are preparing Janet Arnold’s ‘Patterns of Fashion 5: The cut and construction of women’s bodies, stays, hoops and rumps c. 1600-1795’ for publication in 2015. Future volumes of Patterns of Fashion are planned on the subjects of seventeenth and eighteenth century men’s dress, the dress of men and women in Renaissance Europe, eighteenth century women’s European dress and nineteenth century women’s corsets, crinolenes and bustles.

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